Photo Journal: Hanging fortunes

A man hangs onto a bamboo pole on the Shonai River during this year's Kinekosa Matsuri river ritual at Shichishosha Shrine in Nagoya's Nakamura Ward on March 4, 2018. In the annual festival, the year's fortune is determined by the direction in which a bamboo pole breaks after a participant climbs onto it. This year the pole broke toward the south, which means good luck, after initially bending westward -- the direction said to indicate bad luck. The Kinekosa Matsuri festival is believed to date back more than 1,000 years. (Mainichi)